The present invention relates to pest control techniques, and more particularly, but not exclusively, relates to techniques for gathering data from a number of pest control devices spaced about an area to be protected from one or more types of pest.
Subterranean termites are a particularly troublesome type of pest with the potential to cause severe damage to wooden structures. Various schemes have been proposed to eliminate termites and certain other harmful pests of both the insect and noninsect variety. In one approach, pest control relies on the blanket application of chemical pesticides in the area to be protected. However, as a result of environmental regulations, this approach is becoming less desirable.
Recently, advances have been made to provide for the targeted delivery of pesticide chemicals. U.S. Pat. No. 5,815,090 to Su is one example. Another example directed to termite control is the SENTRICON™ system of Dow AgroSciences that has a business address of 9330 Zionsville Road, Indianapolis, Ind. In this system, a number of units each having a termite edible material are placed in the ground about a dwelling to be protected. The units are inspected routinely by a pest control service for the presence of termites, and inspection data is recorded with reference to a unique barcode label associated with each unit. If termites are found in a given unit, a bait is installed that contains a slow-acting pesticide intended to be carried back to the termite nest to eradicate the colony.
Unfortunately, these units are sometimes difficult to locate after installation, resulting in excessive time spent in inspection activities. For metallic units, metal detection equipment might be utilized to speed-up unit location; however, a significant number of buried metal objects are typically found in the vicinity of houses and other structures that would hamper unit detection in this manner. Moreover, it may be desirable to make the units from nonmetallic materials to such an extent that they are not readily locatable with metal detection equipment.
Furthermore, alternative techniques for gathering data relating to pest activity are desired. For instance, it is desirable to reduce the amount of time required for data gathering by pest control services. Also, it is desirable to enhance the reliability of data gathering techniques and to obtain more comprehensive pest activity data.